Fred Astaire's character, Lucky, may depend on the turn of a card or the spin of a roulette wheel to decide his fate but Fred Astaire did not. He and Ginger Rogers, whom he pursues here as usual through several contretemps, put in an enormous amount of work. Astaire insisted that there be few cuts during the dance numbers. Thus, for instance, when Astair and Rogers launch into "Waltz in Swing Time," which requires especially heroic effort from Rogers, the whole intricate number isn't cut at all. This technique naturally involved multiple takes. In the case of "Never Gonna Dance," towards the end, forty-seven takes were required. Imagine. You can put yourself through three or four minutes of strenuous, thoroughly memorized dance steps, after hundreds of hours of planning and rehearsal, flub the last step, and you have to start all over again. Whatever they were paying Astaire and Rogers, it was hardly enough.
The film gets off to a bit of a slow start. There is some fluff about whether Astaire's pants should have cuffs or not. The Grip Quotient remains the same through the rest of the film, which is to say we're not dealing with "Citizen Kane" here.
And the editing. Somewhere along the time line Astaire must have promised Rogers that he would quit gambling because, when she finds him apparently betting on cards, it leads to their third (or is it fourth?) breakup. The scene in which Astaire makes the promise, however, never made it into the final cut. No matter.
It's the musical numbers that count and these are about as good as they come. The tunes are by Jerome Kern (one of them won an Academy Award) and the often amusing and sometimes touching lyrics are by Dorothy Fields. Some of the songs are likely to be familiar. Pick Yourself Up, Dust Yourself Off, and Start All Over Again. A Fine Romance, With No Kisses. Just the Way You Look Tonight. Others may not have entered the national songbook but are spectacular in their own right. I cannot imagine anyone but Astaire doing that frenetic "Bojangles" number in one three-and-a-half minute take without cuts. I don't mean just because it was flawless. I mean I can't imagine anyone doing it without inviting an acute infraction of the myoculinary, flopping all over the place like a marionette being flung about by some puppeteer on crystal meth. Most people could make a thousand mistakes trying to do it and still drop dead of a heart attack.
That number, by the way, is done in blackface, a sorry tradition left over from minstrel shows. But this number was staged (and designed) as a tribute to a specific performer, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, a popular dancer of the 1930s who appeared in several movies, including one or two with Shirley Temple, and Astaire's make-up avoids the crudity of the usual blackface, which even Bert Williams, an African-American himself, needed to wear during his numbers.
The songs are by Jerome Kern, the lyrics by Dorothy Fields. They include "A Fine Romance," "Pick Yourself Up," and "The Way You Look Tonight", which won an Oscar. The last Oscar-winning song I'm aware of is "Take My Breath Away" from "Top Gun." What happened to vernacular music? Was there a train wreck or something? Thoroughly enjoyable -- or almost. You get a pass if you nod out during some of the "comic" interludes featuring Victor Moore.
The film gets off to a bit of a slow start. There is some fluff about whether Astaire's pants should have cuffs or not. The Grip Quotient remains the same through the rest of the film, which is to say we're not dealing with "Citizen Kane" here.
And the editing. Somewhere along the time line Astaire must have promised Rogers that he would quit gambling because, when she finds him apparently betting on cards, it leads to their third (or is it fourth?) breakup. The scene in which Astaire makes the promise, however, never made it into the final cut. No matter.
It's the musical numbers that count and these are about as good as they come. The tunes are by Jerome Kern (one of them won an Academy Award) and the often amusing and sometimes touching lyrics are by Dorothy Fields. Some of the songs are likely to be familiar. Pick Yourself Up, Dust Yourself Off, and Start All Over Again. A Fine Romance, With No Kisses. Just the Way You Look Tonight. Others may not have entered the national songbook but are spectacular in their own right. I cannot imagine anyone but Astaire doing that frenetic "Bojangles" number in one three-and-a-half minute take without cuts. I don't mean just because it was flawless. I mean I can't imagine anyone doing it without inviting an acute infraction of the myoculinary, flopping all over the place like a marionette being flung about by some puppeteer on crystal meth. Most people could make a thousand mistakes trying to do it and still drop dead of a heart attack.
That number, by the way, is done in blackface, a sorry tradition left over from minstrel shows. But this number was staged (and designed) as a tribute to a specific performer, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, a popular dancer of the 1930s who appeared in several movies, including one or two with Shirley Temple, and Astaire's make-up avoids the crudity of the usual blackface, which even Bert Williams, an African-American himself, needed to wear during his numbers.
The songs are by Jerome Kern, the lyrics by Dorothy Fields. They include "A Fine Romance," "Pick Yourself Up," and "The Way You Look Tonight", which won an Oscar. The last Oscar-winning song I'm aware of is "Take My Breath Away" from "Top Gun." What happened to vernacular music? Was there a train wreck or something? Thoroughly enjoyable -- or almost. You get a pass if you nod out during some of the "comic" interludes featuring Victor Moore.